]]>https://emotanafricana.com/2018/09/10/yoruba-enyin-enia-mi-kere-o-o%e1%b9%a3un-governorship-candidates-face-off-on-bbc-yoruba-tola-adenle/feed/0emotanStephen Akintoye calls out Yoruba’s present leaders: “you do not seem to have much in common with Yoruba ancestors”https://emotanafricana.com/2015/07/06/stephen-akintoye-calls-out-yorubas-present-leaders-you-do-not-seem-to-have-much-in-common-with-yoruba-ancestors/
https://emotanafricana.com/2015/07/06/stephen-akintoye-calls-out-yorubas-present-leaders-you-do-not-seem-to-have-much-in-common-with-yoruba-ancestors/#commentsMon, 06 Jul 2015 13:47:52 +0000http://emotanafricana.com/?p=13132THOUGHTS FOR TODAY’S YORUBA LEADERS: Ijẹbu-Ode’s Ancient Ẹrẹdo Town Walls & other Issues – Stephen Akintoye

Something I have been reading in the past few days has left me thinking, wondering and worrying. I refer to something in our Yoruba homeland, something that only few of us know anything about – something from the early history of our Yoruba nation, some construction so big that one account describes it as “the biggest historical monument in the world”. I refer to the Eredo, the Ijebu-Ode city wall that is believed by archaeologists to have been constructed between the 10th and 12th centuries AD, or about one-thousand years ago. It is commonly called Eredo Sungbo, because Ijebu-Ode traditions say that it was constructed in the reign of an Ijebu-Ode queen named Sungbo.

Some of the 15th and 16th century Portuguese explorers and traders along the Yoruba coast heard about the Eredo and mentioned it in their writings. In modern times, many historians have mentioned it in their books. But it was little known to the outside world until 1999 when a British archaeologist, Professor Patrick Darling of Bournmouth University, surveyed the site and published his findings. Since then, the Eredo has been attracting worldwide attention.

Built by the people of early Ijebu-Ode around their town with considerable farmland around it, the Eredo is about 100 miles in circumference, and encompasses an amount of land measuring about 25 miles from north to south and 22 miles from east to west.

It is a typical Yoruba town wall consisting of a trench and an embankment made of the earth that was dug from the trench. In some parts of its length, the top of the embankment is as high as 70 feet from the bottom of the trench. The sides of the trench are made remarkably smooth, testifying to the high skills of the diggers.

As a great structure constructed in early human history, the Eredo is now being compared with the Great Pyramid of Egypt. As more and more gets known about it, it is likely to come close to the Great Pyramid as one of the wonders of the African past, and one of the greatest archeological structures in the world – and, by far, the greatest in Black Africa. Professor Darling estimates that the builders of the Eredo shifted about 3.5 million cubic feet of earth while constructing it – about one-million cubic feet more than the earth and rock shifted by the builders of the Great Pyramid.

The Eredo was probably the greatest of the town walls of Yorubaland in history, but it was by no means the only great one. Most of the Yoruba towns had impressive walls. Ile-Ife early built a great town wall which was expanded again and again at different times later in history. Ila Orangun’s wall was very famous for centuries – and the town was called Ila Yara (Ila of the Great Wall) because of it. An Olowo of Owo, Oba Osogboye, expanded the Owo town wall spectacularly in the 18th century and made it one of the most famous town walls in Yorubaland. Ilesa, Owu, Oyo-Ile, Ado-Ekiti, and many other Yoruba towns had great town walls.

So, following upon the above facts and other known facts of Yoruba history, I have serious thoughts and questions – and serious worry. Since slave labour was never a significant factor in Yoruba economy, where did we Yoruba in those distant times get the labour for a gigantic construction like the Eredo? We can only assume that it was citizens’ labour. In that case, the volume of the citizens’ labour force employed must have been very large; the organization for mobilizing such a large labour force too must have been very sophisticated indeed.

Altogether, what we are looking at here is that, as far back as a thousand years ago, Yoruba civilization was already very advanced. Unlike most other peoples of Black Africa, the Yoruba nation already lived in towns large and small, under a detailed and gorgeous monarchical system, with a well ordered economy, and with very sophisticated institutions and norms of community life, community security and privileges, and community duty and responsibility.

The communal spirit of cooperation and mutual giving made it possible for the average Yoruba peasant family to make large farms beyond its capability and to produce goods and wealth beyond its capability. It also made it possible for the average lineage to build the typical Yoruba lineage compound with living quarters for tens of families and with open courtyards for group life and leisure.

Generations of Yoruba people throughout history have generally upheld and exemplified these strengths of their nation. When Western education was brought to Africa by Christian missionaries in the second half of the 19th century, the Yoruba people of that generation were better ready than probably all other Black African nations to accept it and benefit from it. The Yoruba towns and cities, with their rich economic life, orderly system of governance, and system of security and order, became like bases prepared in advance for the churches and schools. By the end of that century, the Yoruba nation already possessed a growing and influential literate elite, a system for writing the Yoruba language, institutions like newspapers, traditions of Western-type research and scholarship, and authors, books, and book publication.
A 50-year period (roughly 1900-1952) followed during which British imperialism more or less prevented the natural flowering of Yoruba cultural and traditional strength in governance, leadership and socio-economic growth. But when the British allowed the modern literate elites of different parts of Nigeria to begin to manage their peoples’ affairs from 1952 on, the then generation of Yoruba leadership of the Western Region, led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, immediately sprang forth with the innate strength of the Yoruba nation, and gave the Yoruba in the Western Region the most orderly and most productive indigenous government in all of Africa.

Considering all the above, here then is my worry. The present generation of Yoruba elite – the post-Awolowo generation – does not seem to have much in common with – and does not seem to be descendants of – the earlier generations of the Yoruba people and leaders. When one looks closely at political and community behaviour of today’s generation of Yoruba elite, they do not appear to bear much resemblance with those Yoruba ancestors who mobilized their people to build the ancient Yoruba towns and great town walls and the splendid royal institutions, and who built the lineage compounds and maintained the peculiar grade of order in them, or the Yoruba generation of leaders who seized on Western education to make their nation about the leading nation in Africa, or the generation of Yoruba leaders who, in the 1950s, made the name of the Yoruba nation ring again with excellence and glory in nearly all fields of development and progress.

Members of today’s generation of Yoruba leaders are forever bickering over petty (often personal) considerations, interacting with Nigeria’s partisan politics at immature and superficial levels only, and appear to be incapable of perceiving, understanding, and responding appropriately to the obvious directions of Nigeria’s life and future.

Whenever occasion has demanded that they unite to rally in defence of principles and interests important to their Yoruba nation, they have usually mumbled their petty differences and allowed their nation, and the masses of their people, to suffer at the hands of other peoples of Nigeria. Efforts made again and again to stitch together or to harmonize a Yoruba leadership structure always stumbles and scatters. If a group of today’s Yoruba elite holds a meeting, it is more likely to be for plotting against another group of fellow Yoruba; it is very unlikely to be for considering, and finding remedies for, the wounds being inflicted on the Yoruba nation in Nigeria. All in all, this generation of Yoruba elite is losing, not only the greatness, but even the basic strength, and even the very existence, of the Yoruba nation.

But there is hope. If today’s generation of Yoruba elite choose to continue to never rise to the defence of the Yoruba nation, some future generation will rise up and revive, and rebuild, the Yoruba nation. In saying that, I am taking strength from an email message which a Yoruba youth, an undergraduate student of one of our universities, wrote to me some time ago, after he had read a book on Yoruba history. Among other things he wrote: “We are watching sadly as our parents are failing our nation. My own generation, my friends and I, will not do as our parents are doing now. We know that our Yoruba nation is a great and proud nation. If our parents let the greatness and pride die, we will bring it back to life again”. The kinds of strong Yoruba men and women who, in their respective generations, built the Yoruba towns, town walls, sprawling family compounds, great monarchical systems, and adorable systems of governance, who mightily transformed their Yoruba nation through the agency of Western education, who established free education, built our pipe-bourne water supply systems, and our impressive and durable roads, who gave us Africa’s first television station and who, on the whole, taught to dream and be proud, will show up again. Some of them are already among us – in our schools, universities and unemployment lines.

Yoruba language possesses a rich folklore, comprising most importantly proverbs, riddles and song verses. Amongst the Yoruba, I think proverbs are by far the most numerous and the most frequently employed of these forms of verbal art, and are used in all manner of situations: as a means of amusement, in educating the young, to sanction institutionalised behaviour, to settle disputes, in performing religious rituals and ceremonies, AND TO GIVE POINT TO DAY-TO-DAY CONVERSATION/DISCUSSION.

Accordingly, the Yoruba assert, Òwe lẹṣin oro bí oro bá sọnù, òwe la fi ńwá a (The proverb is the horse of speech; when speech is lost, the proverb is the means we use to hunt for it).

Indeed, just as we have parity of SPIRITUALITY amongst all ethnic groups, all languages are analogous to each other. For example, there is no primitiveness in Yoruba language. The Yoruba language, like the 5,000 or more spoken languages across the world today, is flexible and expressive, and can form true sentences, and develop grammar and syntax.

In a spiritual sense, Yoruba language embodies a theory of meaning, a logic, a classification of experience in names, a conception of both perceiver and perceived and their relation, and of relations in space and time. In effect, any Yoruba person can use the language to define, construct, deduce and communicate his or her ideas.

Oba Adenle sat for this portrait in which he wears an Abeti Aja fila style sewn from damask fabrics although he had the sanyan fila of the same aso oke. Yoruba older men sometimes complete their outfits this way by mixing and matching the Yoruba fabrics with imported ones as fila.

The Abeti Aja – “like the flaps of dogs’ ears” is, surprisingly, very popular among young men these days.

Oba Adenle’s gobi style fila which is perhaps the most common style is upturned and faces the front rather than the usual down-turned left or right side-facing style.

[Photo from Late Ulli Beier to Blogger, 2010.]

In this 1967 photograph taken by Depo Adenle, Oba Adenle’s apparent love for the Abeti Aja shows! The fila here is made from the same aso oke fabric as the outfit.

At work in above photograph, the most popular Yoruba fila style can also be seen, the gobi. For example, when retired General Obasanjo became a civilian president in 1999, the style was dubbed “power shift”, a playful allusion to the presidency moving to the Southwest. Men’s f ila took on playful political undertone: if it was turned “eastwards”, it was “power-shifts to the East” and if “westwards”, it was “power-shifts to the West”. Whichever way, many people wore their fila in the gobi style.

[Above picture by Biodun Ogunmola, December 2004.]

Above two photographs were at the public presentation of S.A. Adenle I, Ataoja of Osogbo, Portrait of a Yoruba Oba at the Premier Hotel, Ibadan on October 23, 2006.

In the first photo, Kabiyesi’s Egbe Ero Mimo, society to which he belonged at the All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral, Osogbo renders the society Hymn while below, drummers for his successor, Kabiyesi Oba Oyewole Matanmi who was present at the occasion, entertain the attendees.

In both photographs, ALL men wear their fila Gobi style. Kabiyesi’s Egbe Ero Mimo wear their Aso Ebi colors with the exception of High Chief Popo Balogun, Otun Ajagunna of Osogbo on the left; he joined others to honor the memory of Late Oba Adenle.

Some Old Boys of Ibadan Grammar School, Ibadan, Nigeria show off their school colors in their fila at the recent Centennial celebrations at the cutting of the cake with Nigeria’s first Senior Advocate of Nigeria (after the country had rested the colonial “Crown’s Counsel” after independence), Folake Solanke in command. Retired Professor of Medicine, Ladipo Akinkugbe IS an Old Boy though he’s not wearing the colors!

The gobi style is in the middle while on the right is one of those generic – not as in inexpensive but as in “goes with everything” – fila!

Dr. Adenle ALWAYS wears gobi style. Some, as the one in this picture, are sewn in the style that has the bottom part embroidered by hand just as for the agbada while for others, he has them just simple hand-STITCHED with what was known in sewing classes of old as “running stitches” – three or four rows at the bottom.

Photograph: Julius, Ibadan, 2003.

This young groom likes the old way, wearing the standard gobi style.

The mix-and-match design of the couple’s aso oke weaves is very beautiful: two dominant colors pay homage to the Sanyan heritage with a thin barely-there dark hue between the whites.

And another groom, but here in the old-fashioned abeti aja. This was a fila style young men of my generation did not take to, but it’s now the rage at Yoruba traditional engagement ceremonies where MOST young men spot the style.

Weavers now turn out what are called T’oko, T’aya aso oke which are often unified by colors but not by patterns. Note, though, that the fila for the young men are always made from the ladies fabrics.

I think Our Guy in America is spotting gobi here but who knows, and what does it matter! It may even be the “Lagos look” which is sewn to just sit on the head and therefore requires no expertise. The important point is that the couple looks radiant in their outfits made from imported fabrics.

And the REAL “Father of the Day”, the bride’s father wears – what else – but gobi style fila – as he displays The Proposal Letter (although this particular letter is done the American way – BIG! He must be dancing to the usual song about his family having received a joyful letter that they pray, not even the devil, can destroy!

While the bride’s mother dances with the husband, I’m sure Our Lady in Yellow imported fabric gele and iborun must be the Alaga Ijoko (bride’s family spokesperson. To know about this character in Yoruba engagement ceremony if you do not, please check out:

I call it the Lagos Cap because it was there I first saw it several years ago. Just sit it on the head, no bending, no turning, and off you go!

Below Our Lagos Guy in Alaari is the standard – or may be I should now say classic gobi – style sewn from Alaari.

ALL the men in the last and three following photographs wear Alaari fila or complete – including the little boy wearing a modern & cheaper take of the classic Alaari, I should mention what may not be a surprising information to viewers familiar with statistics shown from time to time on this blog: the Alaari IS the most popular of the three classics – going by readership of this blog, ESPECIALLY the Ondo variety. In fact, until I started posting the series on “Yoruba Engagement Aso Oke” which came much later than the classics, it had the most viewership.

Personally, my favorite is the indigo/black Etu which is supposed to be second in line to Sanyan. I’m sure every aso oke-wearer has his/her favorite!

The Males in the photographs AND the one wearing Sanyan ALL have their fila worn in gobi style.

Based on the random samples contained in this short essay, and buttressed by what I’ve always noticed around Yorubaland, I believe we can conclude that the gobi style of fila for men is the most popular!

Lagos’ governor, Babatunde Fasola, seems to concur on my rating of the gobi style as the numero uno fila; so does the guy in the above picture!

Way back in 1970, Gobi style on Depo Adenle

A young couple finds a quiet corner at an Ibadan party, 2001; gobi on guy stands out!

Blogger, Left, spotting an aso oke Iborun with her Western outfit, joins a parent, her son & a friend at the High School graduation of the University of Ibadan International School, 1998. The kids top their modern male outfits with equally-modern fila.

What better way to get into pre-wedding mode than kidding around in this May 1998 photograph of blogger’s friend and her kids – and blogger’s – at Ibadan, Nigeria! As nobody can notice my UN-Las Vegas NCAA basketball championship Tee from 1990, I’m announcing it, but none can miss Mak’s purple fila rakishly donned in – how else – gobi style! It was his – and the sister’s – first visit to Nigeria, and on seeing the ubiquitous fila style everywhere in Ibadan, Yorubaland’s capital, he got himself one and started wearing it around. I think he looks terrific!

AND, FINALLY, The Awo Cap:

Sitting 2nd Left is Chief Nate Makinde now of blessed memory.

This 1955 photograph was given to blogger and Significant Other by Mr. Nats Makinde for the biography, Samuel Adenle I, Ataoja of Osogbo: Portrait of a Yoruba Oba” which they co-authored. These were an Egin [Ondo Town indigenes] association at Osogbo of the period.

Of the twelve men in the photograph, two are bare-headed, a lone guy wears the gobi style while the remaining 75 percent said “yes” to the Awo Cap! It was taken to mark the “15th anniversity of the Ondo District Union on November 20, 1955.”

Nate Makinde was the pre-eminent photographer at Osogbo of the era; he was also the representative who covered local news in and around Osogbo for The Post. He was a meticulous record-keeper and had loads of old Almanacs, always my favorites, and he gave me an OGO OLUWA ALMANAC 1959 with luminaries, incl. the Alake Oba Ademola (in the center) around whom were Awo, Tafawa Balewa, Justice Udo Udoma, Chief Enahoro … AND also the 1957 Action Group Almanac [See Below]. All were used for the biography of Oba Adenle.

worn here by his recently-departed Son, Chief Oluwole

And, on the Original:

[Photograph of Awo. Gift from Nat Makinde, 2006.]

Most of us who grew up in the 50s and 60s remember seeing Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo always wearing the abbreviated Fez cap, and with his legacy of visionary leadership, service to the masses and forward-looking planning, all shades of politicians in Southwestern Nigeria’s Yorubaland, including dyed-in-the-wool reactionaries and known looters, now wear the Awo Cap. They must feel, if the cloth makes the monk, people will buy my “Awoist” claim when they check out my cap; we say, I say – not so fast!

All pictures on Awo Cap (minus his son’s) are from the biography of Oba Adenle. The man at the top right wearing abeti aja Fila is Chief S. Ladoke Akintola.

Postscript: I’m still looking for fila ode – a hunter’s cap. It resembles a little the gobi but there is surplus pouch-y and long end that is bent as if it can hold something!

2. The gobi may not be thename in every area.

TOLA ADENLE, April 20, 2013. 2.37 p.m. GMT

UPDATE: I have photographs of fila ode [fee-la aw-de; the ‘e’ in ode is pronounced as the first ‘e’ in “elephant.”

The story on this is long but I’ll attempt to make it short, really short because I understand ladies in universities were not THAT fond of guys in clubs that had the palm wine almost like logo! That’s what the guy holding the calabash is doing here although it was far away in Chicago and I do not know how they get palms to tap for its juice in the Windy City.

Above is not the order of line-up of the pictures I received but my main interest is the fila ode although I must confess to enjoying a bit the clowning here. I’ve therefore re-arranged them in what is the logical sequence as ladies anywhere in the world would likely see the events that unfolded here:

Photograph 1: The guy wearing the hunter’s cap is being introduced as, perhaps, an inductee. Photo 2: He gets to drink the POISON. 3. Filled with spirits, he tries his hands on drums, and finally as always happens as EVERYBODY believes singing is second nature and he “sings” aided by the bandana-wearing fellow.

End of stories: the singing that should be confined to bathrooms but more important, the showcasing of fila ode that I did not know would surface so fast! Thanks, Dele.

Plans to reinvent the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN raises dust in the Southwest as the hierarchy of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN allege it is another strategy of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to undermine it in its stronghold.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the national publicity secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN was understandably, seething with indignation at what he alleged as the latest machination of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP directed at his party last Sunday.

Before now, suggestions that the ACN, the dominant political party in the Southwest or its officials could be harassed in its stronghold with a new party could have been farfetched.

But not if the new party is the reincarnation of a popular party that reigned almost unchallenged in the Southwest and had as leader, a visionary ideologue in the person of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

So, it was not surprising that news of the reinvention of the Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, which governed the whole of the Southwest, including Edo and Delta States in the second republic would come as a shock to the ACN hierarchy. It was especially seen as a direct hit at the underbelly of the ACN, which controls what used to be UPN’s domain. And hence, Mohammed’s raging invectives directed at the PDP, which he claimed was set on another game of intrigues directed at the ACN.

The fear of the ACN was that it had all the while claimed ownership of the progressive political legacies of the respected sage, Chief Awolowo who founded the UPN and left a legacy of political and economic philosophising that is yet unmatched in recent memory in Yoruba land, and arguably in Nigeria.

Fasheun: UPN will give direction to the Southwest

So reintroducing Awolowo’s last political party, ACN officials apparently believed, was an attempt to undercut the support base of their party at home.

Even more disturbing for the ACN was the fact that the move to reinvent the UPN is being championed by Dr. Fredrick Fasheun, leader of the pan Yoruba social cultural group, Odua Peoples Congress, OPC.

So a mixture of Fasheun’s undiluted Yoruba centric cultural credentials and Awolowo’s political image was something the ACN hierarchy found more than troubling.

Fasheun’s OPC has since the 1993 presidential election fiasco come to symbolise a sort of cultural standby force in the Southwest with the group’s operatives in many instances being praised for living above board where regular policemen have failed.

So noting that the PDP has decided to go for broke last Sunday, Mohammed at his press conference alleged among others, that one of the champions of the new UPN recently won a pipeline protection contract from the Federal Government, which according to him, was to provide finances for the reinvigoration of the UPN.

“The PDP is keenly aware that it has totally lost the confidence of all Nigerians, and the long-suffering people of this great country are now ready and eager to vote out this clueless party,” Mohammed said last Sunday.

“Keenly aware of this fact, the PDP has now realized that if indeed the 2015 elections are free and fair and conducted in a conducive environment, there will be no chance for the party.

“The party has decided to go for broke: Either there will be no elections in 2015 or the polls will be conducted in an atmosphere of chaos, thereby paving the way for the PDP to do what it does best – rig the elections!”

Noting what he claimed to be the PDP’s game of subterfuge in the Southwest, he said:

“A multi-billion naira contract has suddenly been awarded for the protection of oil pipelines in the region. The main beneficiary of the contract has suddenly realized that the Unity Party of Nigeria, formed by the respected statesman Chief Obafemi Awolowo, is no longer in existence, and has thus decided to revive it.”

Mohammed: It is another PDP scheme

He further asked, “Is it a mere coincidence that the main beneficiary of the multi-billion naira oil pipeline protection contract is also the same fellow who is promoting the revival of the UPN?”

“Is it true that the so-called revival of the UPN is to provide a platform for anarchists and end-gamers in the South-west to infiltrate the ranks of the progressives and throw the region into chaos?”

Following a meeting of the conveners of the new UPN in Dr. Fasheun’s Century Hotel, in Lagos last Wednesday, Dr. Fasheun replied ACN’s Mohammed:

“UPN has come to provide such a credible platform. Those championing the resuscitation of UPN aim to bring sanity into the Nigeria’s political space, beginning with the South-West.” “A credible political association such as UPN will serve as a reliable, focused, people-oriented political vehicle. UPN shall meet the true yearnings of Nigerians for quality education, for free health for all, for a functional transportation system, for rural-urban integration and for mass housing.”

Accusing Mohammed of lying against him on the issue of the oil pipeline contract, he said: “He lied against me and the Oodua People’s Congress, OPC by misinforming the public that I had secured a N2.4 billion contract to guard pipelines. Trouble dey sleep, yanga go wake am. Let us reemphasise that we shall not go out of our way to look for trouble, but if trouble comes knocking, we shall return fire for fire. A word is enough for the wise.”

One of the strongmen of the old UPN, Chief Ebenezer Babatope contacted on the development claimed ignorance of the move behind the reinvention of the old UPN. Babatope who was director of organisation of the UPN and one of the closest associates of the late Awolowo, nevertheless confessed in a telephone chat with Vanguard that he would remain a member of the PDP until he exits politics.

Babatope, a member of the Board of Trustees, BoT of the PDP when pressed on the issue, however, confessed that one of the brains behind the reinvention of the party was a former personal aide of his while he was minister of transport during the Sanni Abacha regime.

The move to reinvent the UPN, controversial as it may be, however, remains a double edged sword for the PDP and those against the ascendancy of the ACN in the region. In the eyes of some stakeholders the ACN which presently governs all but one of the six Southwest States could remain unassailable if the incumbent governors produce the kind of performance that was associated with the old UPN or even better.

]]>https://emotanafricana.com/2013/04/13/is-fasheuns-new-upn-being-used-to-scuttle-the-acn/feed/4emotanComments on “OLOWO of Owo Sir Olateru-Olagbegi at Igogo Festival (1960s)https://emotanafricana.com/2013/04/13/comments-on-olowo-of-owo-sir-olateru-olagbegi-at-igogo-festival-1960s/
https://emotanafricana.com/2013/04/13/comments-on-olowo-of-owo-sir-olateru-olagbegi-at-igogo-festival-1960s/#respondSat, 13 Apr 2013 06:08:59 +0000http://emotanafricana.com/?p=6441The story on IGOGO was posted in the very early hours of yesterday and has actually already attracted readers, although those on the e-list are just being notified. I’m posting Fatai Bakare’s comments which I believe touch some very important points; my response is also below. TOLA, Saturday, April 13, 2013.

It is a pity that some important aspects of the culture of the Yoruba are incidentally going into extinction just like the language itself. I mentioned in one forum that to stem Yoruba language going into extinction, every home should place emphasis in the speaking of the language at home with our children. And this includes those of us living abroad. We have passed the era when brilliance adjudged by the amount of grammar one can blow. All over the world, there are top class scientists, psychologists, medical doctors etc. who are trained in their mother tongues and can’t speak a word of English. E je ka gbe ede wa l’aruge–let’s us make our language important and something to be cherished. The South West governors have a big role in this by making the offering Yoruba language as a subject compulsory at both the primary and secondary school levels.

Now, I have some few questions to ask on the Igogo festival. Did Orensen (the beautiful goddess) bear the king any child? If yes, what happened to him or her when the goddess was leaving in annoyance? The king during the celebration of the festival should plait the hair, is it still done till today looking at the way balding in men is so common even at 30′s and 40′s? Since drums should not roll during the period, does that mean no parties and merriment like weddings and burials of one’s parents? I hope extreme religious adherents do not disturb the festival. Thanks.

The problem of the lack of Yoruba language being spoken widely, especially in middle-class and other homes which could lead to its disappearance has been a subject of many discussions in the Southwest in the last few years. I have personally been interested and involved not just in writing about “Yoruba and other disappearing languages” or such titles in the last decade but was involved with a group, Egbe Ede Yoruba” which came up with several suggestions, including the governments in the southwest making the subject compulsory at elementary & secondary school levels – private schools, included just as you’ve suggested.

Politics in Nigeria has destroyed everything, including the fiber of society. The governors in the region were the problem because the ruling PDP that wangled in (rigged) their candidates had men most of whom were not interested in anything of such nature and stood in the way of the only non-PDP state, Lagos. I knew one was very cooperative and interested.

There are market women in southwest Nigeria whose grasp of the English Language is, at best, worse(!) than a primary school graduate BELIEVE they speak English to their kids in the market! Countless times, I’ve engaged these young women in amiable chats of the usefulness of allowing the kids to grow up speaking Yoruba. I would even speak my dialect so that they realize I had to LEARN to speak “proper Yoruba” and then I would say something in English to let them also realize the dialect & Yoruba have not stood in the way of my mastering the English Language.

I believe we have to fight the battle from all angles: frown on “Say ‘hi’ to Uncle” – in the words of Late Professor Sola Oke’s lecture delivered at the Iju Public Affairs Forum some years ago in which – as a language specialist – suggested that the educated class’ tendency to speak English in their homes even in Nigeria – cannot and will not drive Yoruba into extinction.

As for Igogo, the first and only attendance I had was the one in the 60s. I’m also in support of the point you raised about religious adherents disturbing the festival as it seems to be a trend now for Christian and Muslim extremism to see the celebrations of our heritage as “paganism”.

This, too, is an area that should be one of the areas of engagement for a “Southwest Integration” when – and if – politics of the region does not get in the way of such a laudable proposal.

Late Sir Olateru-Olagbegi, Olowo of Owo at a 1960s Igogo Festival dressed in the traditional effeminate dressing for the festival: pleated hair, a beaded top and big skirt!

Picture source unknown but I had three Olateru-Olagbegi school mates/friends: Kemi, Clementina & Olamide while I knew a few others; it could have been from any of them or I could have bought it as I did attend an Igogo during the 1963 long holidays, and spent holidays there with a brother who headed a secondary school.

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This is a blast from the past!

I did not want to lose this beautiful picture when I found it last December during leisurely holiday period as I went through a bunch of old pictures.

I posted it immediately so that I would not lose it, and have left it on the blog meaning to say something about it but never have! I’ve warned readers over and over again with my dinosaur-era mindset trying to keep up with cyber-age technology; driving an old run-down jalopy on a 20-lane super highway!

With the stats showing – again – this morning that two people had checked out this picture with no story, I am finally doing something, no matter how little, about it!

The Annual Igogo Festival at Owo is a celebration with a very long history dating back centuries, and today, it continues to generate interest not only from Owo indigenes at home and abroad but even foreigners.

ALL Yoruba MAJOR festivals are usually held around the time of new yam harvest which would mean mostly July/August – or, latest September. It is the same with Igogo.

Here is a clip from Ondo State website. TOLA, April 12, 2013.

IGOGO FESTIVAL [HISTORY]

Six hundred years ago, Olowo, the King, fell in love with Orensen, a very beautiful woman. Unfortunately for the King, she was a goddess who could not live with a human. She was forbidden to see women pounding spices, draw water, or throw a bundle of wood to the ground.

Because of his love for the goddess, and in order to marry her, the King promised her that his other wives, in front of her would follow these same restrictions. After several years, the King’s wives became jealous and revolted. They did everything they were not supposed to do in front of the goddess, who then cast a spell upon the entire kingdom. The goddess promised that people of Owo, would die of famine or sickness if the King and his chiefs did not celebrate every year a ceremony in her honor. The drums should beg her pardon and sing her praises. One also had to offer her a sacrifice of a man and a woman.

This ceremony, IGOGO,[IGOGO FESTIVAL] still exists, but the human beings have been replaced by a sheep and a goat.

This is an annual festival in Owo which lasts a total of 17 days featuring a number of ceremonies including the blessing and release of new yams. The festival is in commemoration of the king’s wife who turned into a tree while being pursued by the king’s slave to return to the palace after her rival violated her taboos in her presence.

The Olowo, usually during this festival dresses in Coral Beaded Crown and in addition plaits his hair like a woman. It could be seen here that Owo has some traditional linkage with Benin.

The Olowo leads his people including the Chief Priest and the male youths from Iloro quarters to dance round the whole town. During this 17 days period of celebration, drumming is banned in Owo and instead, metal gongs (Agogo) are used. This was where the name ‘IGOGO’ was coined.

The Igogo festival which comes up in September annually is a cultural display of the culture of the people with its main aim as to align youths with the cultural norm of the land.

]]>https://emotanafricana.com/2013/04/12/olowo-of-owo-sir-olateru-olagbegi-at-igogo-festival-1960s-tola-adenle/feed/23emotanolowo-sir-olateru-olagbegi-at-igogo-festival-1960sRouting of PDP in Yoruba States not a wholesale endorsement of the ACN – D.H. Habeebhttps://emotanafricana.com/2013/04/09/routing-of-pdp-in-yoruba-states-not-a-wholesale-endorsement-of-the-acn-d-h-habeeb/
https://emotanafricana.com/2013/04/09/routing-of-pdp-in-yoruba-states-not-a-wholesale-endorsement-of-the-acn-d-h-habeeb/#commentsTue, 09 Apr 2013 10:14:21 +0000http://emotanafricana.com/?p=6349In the aftermath of the political eclipse of the PDP following serial loses to the opposition in the 2007 gubernatorial and the 2011 National Assembly elections in Ondo, Oshun, Ogun & Ekiti States, the Tinubu-led Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, assumed a position of unchallenged political dominance in the southwest.

So total was this dominance that, even the lone Labour Party administration in Ondo State was initially perceived as a friendly government and virtually, more like the opposite side of the same ACN coin. Not only did the ACN and Labour Party share so many similarities in political world-views and ideology, their mutuality of policy thrusts even permitted key ACN operatives to be part of the Labour Party government in Ondo State. Then for a while, it seemed as if the mainstream Afenifere, led by Pa Reuben Fashoranti, was at the end of its political relevance in the geo-political zone. To a large degree, the ACN sought to supplant the Fashoranti-led Afenifere in the quest for complete socio-political dominance of the southwest through using the new Afenifere Renewal Group, ARG, as an ethico-political compass.

However, it is the view of political pundits that rather than ascribe this turn of events to the southwest’s wholesale endorsement of a new political order, the ACN’s leadership should have understood the Yoruba’s pragmatic and compelling necessity to make, as the first order of political business, the extrication of the southwest from the vortex of the politics of ‘mainstreaming’ that past President Obasanjo had disastrously plunged it! Fact of the matter was, the PDP as a political party, was not any less liked or, any more hated, than any previous party in the southwest; just that the people simply felt uncomfortable to let Obasanjo be in charge of their collective political destiny, period! This much was evident in Ogun State where Obasanjo hails from and also in Oyo State where he had a surrogate in the person of former governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala. The routing of PDP in the Yoruba States was therefore, definitely not a wholesale endorsement of ACN.

Many people believed that ACN’s misreading of this singular development as equating a regional political mandate, instead of looking at it as another phase in the consolidation of power, engendered a boastful, arrogant, and predatory spirit that eventually exposed its political underbelly. Snug in its belief that the electoral battles waged for the liberation of the southwest were won because people believed in the supremacy of its progressive ideological content and that the party, was the true inheritor of the Awolowo political legacy, the ACN, started a vicious campaign for total dominance of Yoruba politics that brooked the administration of no other political party, even of a similar ideological hue!

It was through this ACN’s needless and reckless electoral misadventure in the Ondo State gubernatorial tussle of Oct. 2012 that the Afenifere Patriarchs regained the political momentum by aligning with achievement-based records and issues-oriented electioneering. Basing their support on observable performance monuments that dot the Ondo State political landscape, the Fashoranti-led Afenifere backed the administration of Dr. Olusegun Mimiko for a second term of office and thus, raised political correctness a notch higher in the internecine political battle within the southwest.

ACN apparently had wanted to ‘feast’ on a relatively smaller and lesser known party in power in Ondo State because, it felt insulted and affronted by the decisive independence with which Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, governor of Ondo State, ran his government and treated the call for regional political uniformity. It was and still is, the stand of the Ondo State government that, as sister States in the same region, all the States share so many things in common such as: language, vegetation, culture, geographic contiguity and progressive political ideology. Therefore, areas of common co-operation must exist in agriculture, energy and industry where individual contributions from each of the five southwest states could pull together to be of synergetic effect on the overall fortunes of the geopolitical zone as a whole.

However, rabid ideologues in a party otherwise suffused with rational egg-heads, took over the ACN rhetoric, dishing out such high-voltage verbal abuse on Dr. Mimiko, and advertising such frightening state of electoral preparedness for the October 20, 2012 gubernatorial election in Ondo State that, unprecedented numbers of policemen and soldiers were deployed for the election. The result of the election not only provided an anticlimactic end to an encounter deliberately revved up to symbolize the onset of the Jagaban’s political onslaught against all perceived ‘recalcitrants’, it also demonstrated the Yoruba’s fidelity and appreciation to observable performance in office.

Apparently voting for performance and definitely unimpressed with the bravura and political grandstanding on display, the Ondo State people voted overwhelmingly for Dr. Mimiko’s Labour Party for a second term. That may forever remain for the ACN an odious chapter in a book of political odyssey within the Yoruba land that the party, despite all the preceding hoopla, came a distant third even after the PDP, in the Ondo gubernatorial election of 2012.

This was what recently pitted the old Afenifere group against the ACN-leaning Afenifere Renewal Group, ARG. In this proxy-battle through the gubernatorial election in Ondo State, the ACN appeared to have been put in a position of an impulsive political amateur that could not read or properly gauge the people’s political inclination before acting. The Ondo State gubernatorial election vindicated the Afenifere’s position that “nothing succeeds more than people-centred politics and that enduring loyalty is usually the reward of performance”.

At the national level, the loss of ACN in the Ondo State gubernatorial election in some ways, did nothing to increase the political esteem of its leaders and might have opened a floodgate of reform-minded elements within the party to openly call for party restructuring and reconciliation with the mainstream Afenifere. It has even been admitted by some that the misadventure to openly take on another progressive administration, much celebrated for sterling performance in office, was responsible for the diminished political vibrancy suffered thereafter. One of the planks of ACN’s virulent antagonism, the southwest integration agenda’s conditionality of political uniformity, was eventually diagnosed as being intellectually deficient and probably conceived in political treachery.

The current identification of people previously estranged from the Afenifere Patriarchs, signals a growing awareness that the trajectory of the politics of the southwest may not after all, be dictated from the fashionable addresses of Lagos, but, collectively by the politically discerning Yoruba people. Whichever faction within the Yoruba socio-linguistic abstraction of Awo’s party that aligns with the people, will eventually continue to control the soul of Afenifere. The Fashoranti-led group, presently, is not doing a bad job of that.

Ibadan “Grammar” celebrates its Centennial

TAO OTUNLA Says:April 3, 2013 at 11:50 pmeOsun school uniforms BIZARRE?…….in all of Ghana,in cruel Brittania,children for shared values,discipline,and to give every child a level dressage start, go to school in “the same uniform”. What may I ask is bizarre about this except unthinking reaction to those values listed above that are severely lacking in today’s Nigeria? Is this an unkind exaggeration of ill feeling towards the government or a poor understanding of the meaning of meaning the word BIZARRE. Mo kun fope o.taoReply

emotan77 Says:April 4, 2013 at 7:36 ameDear Mr. Otunla,Thank you for weighing in on Osun’s new move on public schools’ uniforms in Osun, an aside in the report on Ibadan Grammar School’s Centennial.While we all share the same humanity, a common thread that also sees us sharing many values, different countries chart their own courses. In Nigeria, the “Old Students Associations” have long become INSTITUTIONS at secondary school level just as in the U.S.A, Alumni Associations at university level are institutions. Different as they may be, they both aid their schools and colleges in raising funds to improve infrastructure, create scholarships and provide – in the case of Nigerian schools – items that governments are not willing or able to provide. Millions of U.S. college alumni are proud to belong to their college associations and the mails for solicitations and alumni magazines that include news on research breakthroughs, etcetera, never let you forget that you are a Gator, a Bulldog, a Running/Yelling Rebel, etcetera. It is an IDENTITY that alumni wear proudly.

In Nigeria, school uniforms are part of the IDENTITY that students and former students have about their schools just as something as pedestrian as vehicle license plates create identity in Nigeria. It is not an UNTHINKING REACTION to any values to be able to recognize students of various schools by the uniforms they wear nor “ill feeling towards the government” as such things always descend in Nigeria: if you are not for us in every way and on every action we take, then you are against us.

I wonder what the benefits of students switching from the old uniforms to the same outfits throughout a whole state are. I also just wonder if those Old Students Associations who have always been ready to pour in money to complement governments’ meager resources would react to their schools’ new identities – of which the school uniform is the public sign – become submerged.

To Nigerian students for generations, the school uniform has always been almost sacred. Even these days when there are millions of students across the country, it is the reason why some students who have nefarious activities in mind would wear regular clothing to cover their school uniforms. It is also why schools like Ibadan Grammar has YORUBA ASO OKE in its colors woven. During the Centennial as during many celebrations, the men wore FILA and the women had IBORUN made from the cloth. In the U.S.A., any alumni worth his/her diploma has in her home or office flag or other insignia that shows where her collegiate loyalty lies.

Mr. Otunla, I owe no “ill feeling” towards any government and, happily, can say that I was one of the very few – pardon my saying so – who continuously wrote about the previous Osun Government’s profligacy, writings that exposed me to great dangers as many in the state and within then opposition ACN, would tell. [I actually lived at Osogbo from March 2009 to June 2011 and was at Osogbo the day the Tribunal declared retd. Brigadier Oyinlola a usurper and Alhaji Aregbesola the rightfully-elected governor.] All the same, an aside to a policy I find BIZARRE and mentioned in writing about Ibadan Grammar’s old students’ contributions to the school’s development does not deserve the name calling although I’ve been called worse in a writing career that dates back to the 70s just as a great majority of people who have read me since The Daily Sketch know that I make calls as I see them.

If we can have this descent into parochialism that one normally expects from the general populace – from you – on an issue (mega schools) I had written in favor of based on what I knew about Ondo State before a reader wrote about it, then Nigeria may not have much hope. I’ve written tons of essays about President Jonathan just as I wrote tons about retd. General Obasanjo and Alhaji Yar Adua (including their first ladyism-s) but may be in matters pertaining to Osun State for now, I should – in the immortal words of late Uncle Bola Ige – just siddon look. Governors Oyinlola and Gbenga Daniel once believed – and said so – that I was a hack who was dictated to by Asiwaju Tinubu!

A wrap-per. Aso Oke requires from twelve to fifteen pieces of the woven material depending on woman’s size.

Buba

The top – a loose-blouse style that requires l l/2 yards for a manufactured 45-inch wide fabric. You buy a complete set of aso oke and the tailor sorts out the number to use for sewing the buba.

Gele

The head wrap. As can be seen from blogger’s pictures on this blog, they are a lot more difficult to master. Many women are actually quite good at it. Anyway, Nigerians are a very resourceful lot and at many events these days, there are professional gele artists who will turn my type into gele stars – for fees, of course!

Iborun/Ipele

I’ve written at length about this elsewhere but here it is, again: the most complete form of Yoruba dressing for women requires ALL of the above – yes, five pieces. Wear the buba, tie the iro, then the gele, throw the ibo-orun – on your shoulder and not necessarily on your neck as the name implies and it apparently was worn in ages past AND use the fifth piece as you like. [See below.]

Most young women, understandably, go with the three main pieces, skipping the shawl-type iborun/ipele. Many even forgo the gele and just wear iro & buba; these suit them, and there are no rules. If you are visiting Nigeria, you are a Christian and want to attend church service, get a gele because Nigerian churches are very conservative although many do not worry about such.

The three Yoruba Classic Aso Oke

The three Yoruba great classics are Sanyan [Sanyanmiran – as I recently learnt, is another name for Sanyan, thanks to Reader, Mr. Tao], Alaari & Etu – in that order are worn for big occasions as shown here. There are variations in weaves and colors but Sanyan is always khaki-ish plus white; Etu is always black/dark blue and shades close to those while Alaari seems to come with the widest variations although red is the constant.

In the past, these classics were all woven in silk which made them affordable only to royalty and the people of means in society. Even before the extinction of traditional sericulture among Yoruba people of Southwestern Nigeria, affordable threads like cotton were already in use.

Cotton was grown and played a role in Nigeria’s exports but not any more. Major cities had cotton ginnery where farmers would take their harvest so that the seeds could be separated before being sold at the Cotton Cooperatives which were like the Cocoa Cooperatives. It would not be long before threads started coming into the country to meet demands of factories that manufactured fabrics as well as local weavers.

With the availability of cotton and the fact that more people could – and wanted to – afford better refinement, aso oke started to be woven – still by hand as it’s done to date – in cotton.

Reference must be made to other ethnic groups in Nigeria that also wear hand-woven Aso Oke which name must have been derived from the upright loom – up in Yoruba is okeandasois cloth.

Evidences of earlier intermingling from the migratory age shows in the commonality of, for example, etu of Yorubaland in the Southwest and Sokoto (Northwest) and Tiv (Central towards the North East) parts of Nigeria. What is more, the intricate hand-made embroideries of both the Northwest and Southwest from old clothes bear similarities.

The Yoruba and the Tiv also wear their fila – caps – in the same pattern.

These are all important points that must be borne in mind as one views pictures of clothes of the Yoruba from Southwestern part of Nigeria.

For a Sanyan aso oke (Yoruba Classic aso oke1 of 3) wedding, blogger’s 4th piece is under a fifth piece iborunmade from the same Western fabrics for the buba for a May 1998 wedding at Ibadan, Nigeria.

WARNING: The sewn-on furnishing-type bit on the gele is NOT part of Yoruba dressing but I was not thinking I might one day have to share my personal whims with thousands beyond those at a family event

Etu was worn last by blogger’s family because at the time of the second daughter’s wedding, the weavers got too short a notice to have the “quality thread” needed for all family members; so we went for the Number Three fabrics for the Number Two Child! Parents can use any one of the three, or may even choose any of the modern vibrant colored and synthetic thread aso oke. There are no rules, oral or written.

My wish? That we resist those bottom-of-the-ladder plastic-product synthetics by the Chinese and are audaciously stamped with so-called “copyrights” on patterns not designed by them but copied from old Yoruba designs.

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SANYAN

This is the most common Sanyan and it is woven with cotton thread.

Alaari – (I call them ‘the reds’ because unlike the other two,alaari varies a lot but ‘red’ is ever present.)

Ok, before I go into description on the reds worn here, a caveat: busy, busy, busy … two handbags, one fancy while the other held ballet-type slippers for when my feet might hurt – women would understand!

As in the above, blogger’s 4th piece, iborun alaari is under a navy blue velvet 5th piece – picking the navy blue handbag – for a December 1998 wedding at Ibadan, Nigeria.

Bride’s sister wears a fifth set made from buba fabrics while her iborun is tied on the iro not just to accentuate but to hold it in place!

The elaborate embroidery on the back of the agbada of the bride’s father is all hand made; ideally, most have the embroidery done by hand but many are turning to machines for faster turnaround as well as for cost. If you run a palm on the surface of a good hand-embroidered Yoruba agbada, it would feel almost flat with the fabrics.

All Alaari photographs by Biodun Ogunmola, Ibadan, December 1998.

Alaari Ondo/Alaari Egin

A FIFTH piece of brocade to accentuate is used by bride’s mother’s for this Yoruba classic, aso okeAlaari (3 of 3). The dramatic gele of the bride’s motheris woven in modern style to complement the traditional Ondo Town beautiful alaariworn by bride’s parents. The thread for the hand embroidery on agbadaof bride’s father picks one of the colors from the alaari. You do not need to tell them the colors to use for embroidery as the men always just know what goes with what.

As pointed out in the earlier essay on the classics, red dominates but other colors and patterns tend to vary from area to area. Please check out

ETU

Etu was worn last because at the time of the second daughter’s wedding in December 1998, the weavers got too short a notice to have the “quality thread” needed for all family members; so we went for the Number Three fabrics for the Number Two Child! Parents can use any one of the three, or may even choose any of the modern vibrant colored and synthetic thread aso oke.

My wish? That we resist those bottom-of-the-ladder plastic-product synthetics by the Chinese and audaciously stamped with copyrights on patterns from ages long past! If they were copied properly and are pretty, I probably would not be turned off but they scream u-g-l-y from a distance.